Janet Daley was born in America where she began her political life on the Left as an undergraduate at Berkeley. She moved to Britain (and to the Right) in 1965 where she spent nearly twenty years in academic life before becoming a political commentator: all factors that inform her writing on British and American policy and politicians.

Memo to Europhiles: EU countries are already starting to hate each other

My friend Denis MacShane can never be accused of a loss of nerve. Sticking unfailingly to the Europhile line, he is reiterating the unreconstructed received wisdom on the break-up of the euro. On Radio 5 Live this morning, he warned against what he presumably sees as the triumph of the Eurosceptic argument.

"If we don't make any case for Europe, even with its dificulties… then we will have a Europe that resembles much more a giant, uncomfortable, mutually distrusting and loathing Balkans region." The two uses of "Europe" in that quote are important: the first one must mean the EU and its institutions, with the second referring to the geographical entity. Even the most committed Europhiles clearly accept that these are two quite different things. Mr MacShane's warning succinctly embodies the delusion under which the diehard Europeans (in the first sense of the word) are labouring.

Earth to Europhiles: the nations of Europe (in the second sense of the word) are already locked into a giant, uncomfortable, mutually distrusting and loathing "Balkans" region. They have been propelled into that miserable condition by the coercion of the EU: the weaker countries which hugely resent what they see as the bullying contempt of the stronger ones have had their memories of wartime foreign domination revived to an extent that would have seemed inconceivable 20 years ago. Meanwhile the stronger economies are resisting (with understandable anxiety and disgust) the insistence that they rescue populations who seem unable to manage their own affairs sensibly. The mutual distrust and anger are growing at a startling, frightening pace – and more European integration (coercion) is hardly likely to be an antidote.